States’ failure to include substance abuse benefits goes untreated

Over two-thirds of state benchmark health plans violate requirements to cover treatment for addiction disorders put into place by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (P.L. 111-148). The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (the Center) surveyed addiction treatment benefits offered among 2017 Essential Health Benefits (EHB) benchmark plans and found none offered what it considers to be “adequate” addiction treatment benefits. The main problem, the Center believes, is that although the ACA requires coverage of substance use disorder (SUD) services as an EHB and requires that the SUD benefits be provided at parity with comparable medical/surgical benefits, the ACA does not specifically define what those benefits should be. It leaves that up to the states, and that is where they fall short.

Analysis

The Center analyzed those benefits offered within each of the 50 states to determine the minimum level of benefits available to those covered in state exchange plans. Each state’s 2017 EHB-benchmark plan was then reviewed to determine whether it: (1) satisfies the ACA’s requirements regarding coverage of addiction benefits; (2) complies with parity requirements; (3) provides adequate care for addiction by covering the full range of critical benefits without imposing harmful treatment limitations; and (4) provides enough information to fully evaluate compliance and adequacy of benefits. Clouding the review, the Center noted, is the problem that plan documents for 88 percent of state plans lacked sufficient detail for it to fully evaluate parity, compliance, and the adequacy of addiction benefits.

Most commonly missing

Many plans either frequently exclude or do not explicitly cover benefits related to residential treatment and the use of methadone maintenance therapy. The Center found that 18 percent of the plans lacked compliance with parity requirements, while 31 percent of the plans contained possible parity violations. Over half of plans violate the EHB requirement for tobacco cessation coverage and nearly half violate the ACA’s requirement for coverage of prescription drugs to treat addiction. Although the ACA specifically prohibits the use of per-beneficiary annual or lifetime dollar limits for EHB, Texas and Michigan are in violation of this requirement. Further, Alaska’s plan does not even cover services and supplies relating to diagnosis and treatment of addiction.

“Addiction is a chronic disease that often goes untreated, and when patients can’t access addiction treatment it can lead to disability and premature death,” said the report. “In order to fulfill the ACA’s intent of dramatically expanding access to addiction treatment, states should revise their EHB benchmark plans to comply with the law … This will help to close the addiction treatment gap, improve the health of patients seeking addiction treatment, and decrease costs for the health plans in the long-term.”